


Into The Sunset

by HalfASlug



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 16:42:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10723224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfASlug/pseuds/HalfASlug
Summary: Hardy wonders where his life is heading. Ellie wonders where he is physically heading.Set directly after S3E8.





	Into The Sunset

**Author's Note:**

> A rough draft of this was written the night the finale ended. I imagine this won't be the last of my slight fixit fics about the last scene.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Miller.”

“See you tomorrow.”

She walked away, still chuckling to herself. Hardy watched for a beat before heading in the opposite direction. The sun was low in the sky, causing him to squint, but he could make out the rolling waves at the end of the pier, reaching out infinitely towards the horizon.

“Where are you going?”

Hardy stopped and closed his eyes, begging for patience. He turned and saw Miller with her hand shielding her eyes.

“Thought you said you were going to see Daisy?”

“I am.”

Miller made a face at him. “Is she in France? Or a mermaid?”

Hardy sighed. “Miller-”

“Don’t  _ ‘Miller’  _ me. Where are you going?”

His hands slipped into his pockets as he kicked a pebble. He watched it skitter across the concrete and hit the wall, the noise drowned out by the waves that surrounded him. The only dry land he could escape on was occupied by Miller. It was strange not to be panicked by the situation. After all, water trapping him was the stuff of his nightmares.

Then again, maybe it had something to do with another one of his fears. One he had a growing feeling he would be facing a lot sooner than he originally hoped.

Miller crossed her arms. “Tell me you didn’t just blow me off to stare at the sea.”

“I don’t stare at the-”

“Stop being a twat. You always do this,” she snapped.

“What?”

“Go for walks. Sit on the beach for hours,” she said, pulling a face. “You get the sand all in my car. Not once have you apologised - let alone offered to clean it!”

She had a point but the sea would have to freeze over before he admitted it. “Can I go now?”

“No! Where’s Daisy?”

Hardy weighed up his options. There was no denying that he had been caught out. Something told him he wouldn’t be able to employ his usual tactic of avoiding questions he didn’t want to answer with Miller blocking his escape.

Briefly, he considered lying. The idea was dismissed almost immediately.

They didn’t lie to each other.

“Sandbrook,” he sighed.

Anger faded into surprise and then sympathy on Miller’s face. He was once again floored by how expressive she could be and still manage to be a decent copper.

“What?” She unfolded her arms and took a step towards him. “You said-”

“She’s only there for a couple of days,” he reassured her. “Tess’ mum’s 70th is tomorrow so-”

“So you were just being a dickhead, then?”

Hardy dragged his hand over his face. Any leeway she had been about to give him had evaporated. He looked over her shoulder at the beach. The place they had met and this whole journey had began. Had it really only been three years?

Everything had changed from the moment he had seen Danny on the beach. Part of him wished he could go back and tell the man approaching the body as though it were his own he would be stood on the pier with every ball in his court in a matter of years.

Back in the present, Miller was scowling at him.

The risks he had taken to get to this point had mostly paid off. In a moment of recklessness or bravery, he decided to take one more.

“It’s not… it’s not that.” He planted his hands on his hips and met her eyes with great effort. His barely formed decision made him feel like a different person. Everything around him was white noise and he wasn’t sure if he was still attached to his limbs.

His acute nervousness went completely unnoticed by Miller.

“If you didn’t want to go you just had to say!” she yelled. “You didn’t need to make up some shit-”

“Miller! I wanted to ask you!”

The words left him like a bullet from a gun. There was no taking them back.

Miller frowned. “What?”

Hardy cursed himself. Taking the initial leap was never the issue for him. Sustaining his nerve and following through on the other hand…

“It’s stupid and old fashioned I know but,” he sighed and threw his arms out at his sides, “I wanted to ask you.”

Miller fidgeted. “To go to the pub?”

“To go for a drink. Yeah.”

He counted down as the realisation hit her and her eyes went wide. It didn’t feel like there was any ground beneath his feet, like he could plummet into the water at any moment.

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

She chuckled self consciously. “That _is_ stupid and old fashioned.”

“Look, can we drop this?”

“No,” Miller insisted. She stood up straighter, as though bracing herself for something. “Ask me.”

“What?”

“You wanted to ask me so ask me.”

Hardy stared at her, unblinking. In all of the various scenarios he had imagined in both his dreams and his nightmares, this scene had never played out quite this way. “This is redundant.”

“Fine.” Miller shrugged and spun on her heel.

She took a step away from him, and Hardy mirrored her as though he were attached by strings. It was a terrifying thought.

“Miller!” he called and she stopped, looking over her shoulder. “Come for a drink with me.”

Although his last check up and reassured him his pacemaker was working perfectly, Hardy could’ve sworn his heart stopped while Miller thought her answer through.

“Hmm… no.” She flashed him a smile and stalked away.

“For fuck’s sake,” he muttered and turned his back on her so he didn’t have to see her stupid happy strut for having bested him. It was one thing having his feelings rejected, it was quite another to watch the resulting victory dance.

Hardy sighed as he watched the last light of the day dance across the surface of the sea. It was lucky that he had only hinted at what he thought of Miller, really. Wanting to ask someone for a drink was still basically friendship. There was still a chance they wouldn’t be awkward at work tomorrow.

There was still a chance for her to forget the sorry conversation ever happened so he could try again another time.

Actually _try_ as well. Not just piggy back on her suggestion. And then fuck it up. Somehow.

The wind blew his fringe off his face. This stupid town with its stupid sand and stupid cliffs. He wondered if his past self, the dead man walking, would want to warn him about how he would end up trapped in a tiny town that was only just not backwards enough to inspire something similar to The Wicker Man.

It didn’t  _ feel _ like being trapped though. The water didn’t make him as claustrophobic as it once had. In fact, it was soothing - as long as he was on solid ground.

Broadchurch was home. It had taken years, but it no longer felt like a prison sentence. It felt like it was where he was meant to be all along.

“Seven.”

It took a moment for Hardy to realise someone had spoken. He slowly turned on the spot and saw Miller, hands in her coat pockets, staring at him.

“What?”

“Seven,” she reiterated. “At the Lion.”

There was a flicker of a smile on her face and Hardy felt his own mouth twitch.

“You’re not gonna stand me up, are you?”

“Might do,” she replied cheekily.

The moment was dreamlike. The air was too thin and the lighting too strange. For nearly five years, Hardy had been living in those kinds of spaces. Wondering if he would ever see Daisy again. If he would heal the pain he had caused those closest to him. If he would find a permanent address. If he would see the next day.

The last couple of months and been less ethereal. Solid edges had formed around his vision. Tomorrow was a certainty.

Life was real once again.

It was time he stopped being so scared that it could dissolve.

“No,” was all he could think to say.

Miller blinked. “What?”

Hardy approached her, not blaming her for being confused. He stopped just before her and noticed how she had to tip her head back to see him properly. It was of the many things that he found endearing about her that didn’t also terrify him.

“We’ll go now,” he said, nodding towards the town. “I’m not risking you running off.”

Miller laughed disbelievingly. “Says you! You just tried to walk into the sea just to-”

It could have been the crease between her eyes. It could have been how her accent thickened when she was annoyed. It could have been a mixture of all the things that made her Ellie Miller.

Something though, convinced Hardy that another argument couldn’t get his point across the same way as simply kissing her could.

Her lips were cold from the wind, but still soft. A second of shock on her part soon faded and he felt her hands reach out to grab the lapels of his coat. There was no way to distinguish if the crashing he could hear was coming from the waves or inside his own head.

She pulled away and stared at him, pupils blown wide and mouth puckered. If he looked even half as nervous she did then it was still nowhere near what he felt.

“We can just go to the pub now,” he said, hoping his legs could still make their way to the highstreet.

His words seemed to snap Miller back to life. “That’s not asking.”

With a sigh, Hardy glanced at the cliffs and back to her. “I’m not walking away anymore.”

His greater meaning was thankfully not lost on Miller as Hardy noticed her eyes looked decidedly wet.

“Don’t you think we’ve waited long enough already?” he asked with a rueful grin that she matched.

“Maybe if you spent less time brooding at the horizon then-”

“You’re not going to let me forget that, are you?”

She surprised him by kissing him quickly and pulling him down the pier by his hand with a grin. “Nope.”

Hardy laced their fingers together and found he didn’t mind all that much.


End file.
